Aubergines

Solanum Melongena

Appears in

The Gate Vegetarian Cookbook

By Adrian Daniel and Michael Daniel

Published 2004

About

The aubergine is the vegetarian cook’s flexible friend, as it can be cooked in many ways and matches – as well as readily takes up – a wide range of added flavourings. This vegetable-fruit, a member of the tomato family, originated in Central Asia. It has been used throughout the Indian subcontinent and Arab world, where it is known as brinjal, for more than 1,500 years. As kids, we often enjoyed aubergines as baba ghanoush and in curries.

It is generally believed that the aubergine’s arrival in Northern Europe is down to those Jews who fled the Spanish Inquisitors, and certainly fried aubergine has long been a common part of Jewish sabbath meals. Like the tomato, however, the aubergine was initially greeted with suspicion in Europe, and was thought to bring on insanity and called the “soothing mad apple”, which gave it its Latin name.